Crossing the Pacific Ocean

On the evening of April 13^th.  Saecwen took her departure from the island of Santa Cruz in the Galapagos Islands bound for the Gambier Islands in French Polynesia, 2,980 miles to the southwest across the Pacific Ocean.

Saecwen's cabin decked with oranges for the passage

It had been a frantic couple of days preparing for departure. Trips to the local markets to stock up on huge quantities of fresh fruit and vegetables were interspersed with plodding through the usual bureaucratic formalities to clear out of the Ecuador and the islands. The latter concluded with a full delegation of officials from customs and the National Park coming aboard to search the boat to ensure (amongst other things) that we weren’t trying to take any of the islands’ exotic animals away with us.

Fwd pilot-berth renamed as ship's vegetable patch

It was a relief to finally be underway and to begin the significant undertaking of crossing this huge stretch of ocean. Our immediate priority was to find the prevailing southeast trade winds, which we were depending on to provide us with the fair winds we needed to make a fast passage across the Pacific.

The weather forecasts were telling us that the trades had established themselves approximately 300 miles to the south of the islands, with a band of cloudy and variable weather of the inter tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) lying in the way. Our plan was to head due south to get across this area as quickly as possible before setting our trans-pacific course.

Squall spotting via radar

Initially we motored for 24 hours through a flat calm until a fresh southerly headwind wind came on bang-on the nose. The next couple of days were then spent close-hauled beating into a very nasty confused sea with frequent rain squalls – typical unpleasant ITCZ weather. Finally, after 48 hours of this initial bumpy ride the wind backed into the southeast. We had found the trades! We soon bore away setting a waypoint off Pitcairn Island, 200 miles to the east of our ultimate destination of the Gambiers.

With the clouds and rain squalls of the ITCZ giving way to a beautiful trade wind sky, Saecwen soon got into her stride averaging excellent noon-to-noon 24 runs of over 160 miles. The wind, initially in the SE and then gradually backing into ESE, ranged between 12 and 20 knots, and while these variants kept us busy through the day reefing and un-reefing several times – this was magnificent sailing in relatively calm seas under beautiful blue skies.

2,000 miles out to see a booby came to visit

At the beginning of Week 2 things became a bit more interesting. The moderate ESE trade winds of the previous days significantly accelerated finding Saecwen broad reaching before a consistent F6 (18-24kn) wind with frequent prolonged gust going at F7 and sometimes F8 (gale force). The sea soon built up into very large 3 to 4 meter waves, which was often crested with large breaking crests - a number of which found their way into the cockpit (usually on Heloise’s watch). These appeared like conditions more reminiscent of the Southern Ocean than the so-called balmy trade winds.

Sunrise over the stern

Saecwen handled these challenging conditions with little fuss and with three reefs in her mainsail (reducing the sail area by half) and a small headsail she maintained an average speed of 7 knots – giving us 24 hour runs from 167 to 170 miles. We were particularly delighted by the way George IV (our hydrovane wind vane self-steering system) coped ably and steered a remarkably consistent course through all weather conditions.

"George IV', our heroic wind vane who steered us across the Pacific

One of the critical duties of the duty watch keeper is to keep lookout for tropical squalls. These would come down on us at very short notice bringing significantly accelerated winds accompanied usually by a major downpour, necessitating reefing the sails before these mini-storm cells hit. During the day they could be seen quite clearly charging down on us from astern, and at night our radar would also give us a good indication of their whereabouts. As the voyage progressed a tiny sliver of a new moon soon grew into a beautiful full moon, which gave us much welcome nighttime visibility to track these squall clouds before they hit us. 

Moonglade to starboard

After the rather unpleasant three days at the beginning of the passage, we all soon settled down into the routines of life at sea. A fixed watch system ensured the three of us all got a good six hour sleep each night and cooking our main lunch time meal was shared on a rota basis. When not sailing the boat, sleeping or cooking, we kept ourselves entertained through a variety our extra-curricular activities.

Charlie catches a Wahoo! (and turns it into ceviche)

Our fishing endeavours were hugely successful in the first half of the passage with a succession of Mahi-Mahi and Wahoo being hauled aboard. We found the latter made particularly good ceviche when pickled in sea water, onions and lime juice. However, once the heavy weather set in mid-passage we hauled in our lines given the severe rolling and pitching of the boat made landing and clean large fish somewhat impractical. After that we never saw another fish. During the second half of the passage the ocean definitely became much more devoid of wild life - with only the occasional sea bird passing us by and one much welcome visit by a pod of playful dolphins.

Justin's double catch - Wahoo and Mahi Mahi

Heloise and Justin also kept themselves busy pickling and fermenting vegetables, sprouting beans and making yogurt – providing some welcome treats as we gradually ate our way through the fresh supplies of fruit and vegetables from the Galapagos. 

Chilli sin carne & plantain fritters

When not scanning the windward horizon for squalls, our night watches were also taken up by a frenzy of stargazing. Whole new constellations filled the southern skies such as Scorpio (with the dazzling Antares at its core), the Southern Cross, Centaurus, the Dragon Fly (Musca) and the Corona Australis. The first weeks of the passage also coincided with the Lyrid meteor shower, filling the night sky to the north with shooting stars. The light of the growing full moon eventually made stargazing more difficult,, however, we were more than compensated by the amazing spectacle of the boat sailing down the sparkling moonglade as she continued her passage south west.

Whilst crossing this huge empty ocean we never saw a single ship or fellow yacht – that was until in the middle of the night on Day 14  we ran into the Chinese industrial fishing fleet. Whilst we never saw any physical sign of any vessel, our electronic chart plotter revealed the existence of dozens of AIS signals coming from a series of floating rafts, spaced out in straight lines at 6 mile intervals. Hundreds of kilometres of baited lines designed to catch pelagic fish such as tuna, mahi mahi and sword fish hang from these platforms. In addition to plundering our oceans of these vital fish stocks, this deep sea fishing infrastructure inevitably causes further untold ecocide in their by-catch such as dolphins, migratory turtles and seabirds who dive on the bait.

Saecwen dodges the Chinese fishing platforms and floating fish factories mid Pacific Ocean

When confronted by this wall of electronic signals we initially tried to sail around them, fearing entanglement in the huge quantities of unseen fishing tackle. However, after heading south for 3 hours, all we kept seeing was more AIS signals of fishing platforms popping up ahead of us. Finally, we bit the bullet and sailed through the line of signals, raising our 1.5 meter centre board at the critical moment of passing over the fishing lines. Thankfully we did not snag anything and continued our way.

Charlie taking a noon site

Whilst for the duration of the voyage we relied on our modern GPS based electronic navigational system, it was also a great pleasure to get out our ancient sextant (which had been the only means of navigating on the old Saecwen’s six transatlantic crossings in the 1970s, 80s and 90s) to remind ourselves of traditional navigational skills. Remarkably our last set of sun sights put us about a mile from our GPS position.

Justin getting to grips with the sextant

Finally on the morning of Day 21 the crew were woken up by Charlie’s frantic clanging of ship’s bell. 25 miles away on the western horizon was the unmistakable outline of land in the form of the 300m high peaks of Mangareva Island, the largest of the Gambiers.

Goose winged into the sunset

As the day progressed the other islands and palm tree covered motus (small islands along the atoll’s outer reef) took shape and sunset saw us jibe the ship to enter the western pass of the Gambier atoll, anchoring for the night under the lee of Mangareva’s north shore. The last bottle of Charlie and Heloise’s wedding champagne was broken out to celebrate what had been a truly wonderful passage.

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Land Ho!

We had sailed through the water 3,500 miles in 21 Days, averaging just under 7 knots of boat speed – giving us an average daily run of 168 nm. This was a record for Saecwen and we felt we had really got to know the capabilities of our wonderful ship so much better.

Sundowners on the foredeck

Most significantly, that wild dream of many years ago of building a beautiful wooden sailing boat and one day sailing her to the remote islands of the South Pacific had been fulfilled.

Enjoying our first fresh banana on arrival at Mangareva, les Gambiers, French Polynesia